Watching TV Shows on DVD is Addictive Behavior
I have done a lot of coverage on movies in this blog. But I would like to dedicate at least one post to television. Specifically, I would like to offer a world of praise to the wonderful entertainment medium that is television shows on DVD. And I would like to offer equally harsh criticism of video stores in their renting schemes for television shows on DVD.
First, television shows on DVD are much more watchable than movies on DVD. When it comes to half-hour programming, these episodes play in little over 20 minutes after commercials are removed. Also, hour-long programming comes out to about 44 minutes on DVD. Obviously, the cumulative material of all of the episodes of a TV show will exceed that of a one and a half to three hour movie. But TV shows are meant to be broken up into pieces, so you can watch just one twenty minute episode and move on. Have you ever tried stopping in the middle of a movie, and not gotten around to finish it until the next day or later? It doesn't flow as well as TV shows do in this way. And the great part is that you can get your fill of material beyond the (approximated) 2 hours of a movie.
But the worst aspect of TV shows on DVD is how they are presented. They are almost always significantly more expensive to buy than a single movie is. TV shows on DVD usually range from about $25-$50, while movies on DVD usually cost $15-$20. When you're poor like me, this is a significant cost gap. But what is even worse is the way that rental services like Blockbuster handle TV shows on DVD. Instead of having them in the normal renting format, where you could rent an entire season, they only allow you to rent a single DVD at a time for TV shows, regardless of the fact that most seasons are packaged as a series of a few DVDs. So if I want to rent "Pee-Wee's Playhouse" on DVD, I can only rent Disc 1 from Season 1, rather than all of Season 1. The first problem with this is the cost. Renting one disc at a time rather than the whole season is obviously more expensive. Second is the inconvenience. If you have to keep going back to the video store to get new discs, it is certainly discouraging you from renting. And since they break up the season into discs, it is common that the next disc in the series that you go to rent at the video store will be rented out by another customer.
But fear not! I have a solution for you. Thanks to the wonderful student newspaper of Syracuse University, "The Daily Orange", I was introduced to the website www.allfg.org, which links to all different TV shows hosted on other websites. It is really quite useful, and will save you plenty of money in DVD rentals or buys.
So make sure to look into TV shows on DVD (if you haven't already). There are plenty others that I could cite, but here are some lesser-known favorites of mine. Check out: Arrested Development, The Office (UK... more like a miniseries), The Office (US) is good too (even though the first season is abominable), Band of Brothers (miniseries), and Weeds. Enjoy!
First, television shows on DVD are much more watchable than movies on DVD. When it comes to half-hour programming, these episodes play in little over 20 minutes after commercials are removed. Also, hour-long programming comes out to about 44 minutes on DVD. Obviously, the cumulative material of all of the episodes of a TV show will exceed that of a one and a half to three hour movie. But TV shows are meant to be broken up into pieces, so you can watch just one twenty minute episode and move on. Have you ever tried stopping in the middle of a movie, and not gotten around to finish it until the next day or later? It doesn't flow as well as TV shows do in this way. And the great part is that you can get your fill of material beyond the (approximated) 2 hours of a movie.
But the worst aspect of TV shows on DVD is how they are presented. They are almost always significantly more expensive to buy than a single movie is. TV shows on DVD usually range from about $25-$50, while movies on DVD usually cost $15-$20. When you're poor like me, this is a significant cost gap. But what is even worse is the way that rental services like Blockbuster handle TV shows on DVD. Instead of having them in the normal renting format, where you could rent an entire season, they only allow you to rent a single DVD at a time for TV shows, regardless of the fact that most seasons are packaged as a series of a few DVDs. So if I want to rent "Pee-Wee's Playhouse" on DVD, I can only rent Disc 1 from Season 1, rather than all of Season 1. The first problem with this is the cost. Renting one disc at a time rather than the whole season is obviously more expensive. Second is the inconvenience. If you have to keep going back to the video store to get new discs, it is certainly discouraging you from renting. And since they break up the season into discs, it is common that the next disc in the series that you go to rent at the video store will be rented out by another customer.
But fear not! I have a solution for you. Thanks to the wonderful student newspaper of Syracuse University, "The Daily Orange", I was introduced to the website www.allfg.org, which links to all different TV shows hosted on other websites. It is really quite useful, and will save you plenty of money in DVD rentals or buys.
So make sure to look into TV shows on DVD (if you haven't already). There are plenty others that I could cite, but here are some lesser-known favorites of mine. Check out: Arrested Development, The Office (UK... more like a miniseries), The Office (US) is good too (even though the first season is abominable), Band of Brothers (miniseries), and Weeds. Enjoy!
posted by Brian Doty at 6:59 PM
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